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Editor's note: This is the first installment of a series about the growing senior population in Jefferson County and the mountain area.

Depending on whom you ask, the baby boom generation either popularized self-indulgence or helped create a more egalitarian America. But whether rotten or visionary, the generation born between 1946 and 1964 isn’t a kid anymore, and its final chapter promises changes and challenges to match any that have come before.

MORRISON — Morrison Police Chief Rudy Sandoval was pleasantly surprised and mildly competitive upon hearing his town was recently ranked among the 10 safest cities in Colorado.

“That’s good news,” Sandoval said. “Who beat us?”

While Lakeside finished first, followed by Black Hawk and then Campo, Morrison finished fourth based on most police officers per capita. The recent report from ConsumerAffairs.com relied onFBI and Census Bureau data.

Everybody who participated in Drive Smart’s much-anticipated eighth annual Evergreen Lake Plunge had her own reason to strip down and jump in.

For Drive Smart’s executive director, Jackie Mohr, it may have been a case of leading by example. Mohr dreamed up the event back in 2009 and could hardly ask her neighbors to take a dip that she will not. In any case, by noon on New Year’s Day, her cold-blooded brand of leadership appeared to have inspired a whole lot of hot-blooded emulation.

Hope and positivity are the best words to describe Evergreen’s Babb family, whose son Tommy was in a freak accident Dec. 27 while on a family vacation in Hawaii.

The injuries have affected Tommy’s mobility, though it’s too soon to tell just how severely. However, family members — dad Steve, mom Christa, brother Adam and sister Claire — say they are embracing their new reality and moving forward, with their Christian faith as a guide.

The Wilmot Elementary Wildcats now have a real wildcat as their mascot.

Students last fall collected the necessary money — $120 —to adopt Mitchell the bobcat, who lives at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg.

Jenna Audlin, the third-grader who spearheaded the adoption drive, promises that Mitchell won’t be moving into the school, but will stay in Keenesburg instead. She hopes her Girl Scout troop or maybe even the entire school can travel to the sanctuary to visit the newest Wilmot Wildcat.

There’s a reason people come from throughout the Front Range to spend New Year’s Eve in Evergreen.

“There’s just nothing else like this,” said Randy Coleman, gently holding his 4-year-old daughter, Nikki, in an upright posture as she tested the size-nothing ice skates laced to her tiny feet. “This is our third Skate the Lake. If this wasn’t going on, I don’t think we’d do anything on New Year’s Eve.”

Evergreen had its share of ups and downs in 2015. This week the Canyon Courier is looking back at some of the more impactful stories from the past 12 months.

Remembering Greg Henika

In January, Evergreen lost longtime volunteer Greg Henika, who drowned in Evergreen Lake when the ATV he was driving to groom the lake for a Blue Spruce Kiwanis event fell through the ice. His loss was met with an outpouring of love from the community, including a candlelight vigil and a music festival fund-raiser.

A resident of Life Care Center of Evergreen has become a well-known artist in certain circles.

Nancy Garner’s watercolor painting of two snowmen won the mountain states division of the Christmas card competition sponsored by Life Care Centers of America, the parent company of the Evergreen location. There are more than 20 facilities in the division.

Garner, who had a stroke that paralyzed the right side of her body, has learned to paint and draw with her left hand. She has been painting holiday scenes for years that family members turned into cards.

Evergreen firefighters and Walmart combined on a recent Saturday to provide needy kids and their families a "shopping day" and a big helping of holiday cheer.

Christmas for Firefighters has been bringing the holidays home for families facing financial difficulties since 2001. The annual event is the brainchild of Fire Marshal Frank Dearborn and is partially funded by a Walmart community grant.

Two Evergreen area residents have embarked on a special holiday project called Purses for Purpose to benefit homeless women living in shelters.

Inspired by a posting they saw on Facebook, Emily Yeager and Jennifer Mathews are seeking donations of purses filled with toiletries, socks, underwear and tights of various sizes, which they will give to two women’s shelters in Denver.

He will get on his soapbox, as he puts it, with anyone who’ll listen to advice on stopping teenagers from sending naked photos of themselves to one another.

Sexting was in the news recently thanks to a scandal in Cañon City Schools that involved 100 students. Some were suspended, and others could face felony charges because sexting in Colorado is considered sexual exploitation of a child, a class 3 felony.

OK, not real snowboarding, but they have been learning the techniques needed to snowboard, especially balance and agility. They’ve learned how to grab the board when doing tricks and making 180-degree turns.

The snowboard training is coming from this year’s artist-in-residence, a representative from Skate Pass, a Boulder-based company that teaches kids to snowboard and skateboard.